KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With heavy rain­fall beat­ing down on sev­er­al South and Cen­tral com­mu­ni­ties prone to flood­ing, Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units (DMU) are on stand­by, es­pe­cial­ly with a land­slip threat­en­ing to cut off fam­i­lies in Bras­so Ve­na­do.

There were street floods in com­mu­ni­ties with­in the Cou­va-Tabaquite-Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (CT­TRC), Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) and Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (MR­CRC) be­tween Wednes­day af­ter­noon and Thurs­day.

CT­TRC chair­man Hen­ry Awong said the floods were mi­nor and did not af­fect house­holds.

Awong said the re­gion was not on­ly prone to floods but land­slips as well. Sev­er­al land­slips plague the CT­TRC, and re­cent rain­fall ex­ac­er­bat­ed one in Tor­tu­ga.

But Awong said a pre­car­i­ous land­slip along Tele­maque Road, be­tween Flana­gin Town and Bras­so Ve­na­do could leave a vil­lage of 300 peo­ple strand­ed if overnight rains were heavy. There is al­so an­oth­er along the Ca­paro Val­ley/Bras­so Road.

He said, “There are two ma­jor land­slips along that road, and if the rain con­tin­ues like this, very short­ly, that road can cut off,”

Mean­while, the PDRC is on high alert for flood­ing as riv­er lev­els were high yes­ter­day.

Fol­low­ing ad­vice from its DMU, the PDRC sent work­ers who live in the Barack­pore and Pe­nal Rock Road com­mu­ni­ties home ear­ly as those ar­eas flood­ed on Wednes­day.

PDRC chair­man Dr Allen Sam­my said around noon, there was a high tide, and peo­ple crossed their fin­gers, hop­ing that low tide would re­duce riv­er lev­els.

How­ev­er, Sam­my said with rain in the Princes Town re­gion over the last two days, they ex­pect­ed the wash-off to flow in­to Pe­nal and Debe com­mu­ni­ties. There were al­ready high wa­ter lev­els in the swamps of Wood­land, and res­i­dents there ex­pect­ed it to wors­en with fur­ther rain­fall.

“Oth­er ar­eas had floods, but not on the road­way. We will be in trou­ble if more rain falls, es­pe­cial­ly in the Princes Town and Pe­nal Rock Road ar­eas. The Pa­pourie, Oropouche, and Cu­ru­ta­ma rivers are full,” Sam­my said.

“There is stor­age at key points in case peo­ple flood overnight on the Rochard Road and Pe­nal Rock Road ar­eas,” he said.

With trucks and high ve­hi­cles as­sist­ing res­i­dents in Biche to pass flood­ed streets on Wednes­day, the MR­CRC is al­so ready to de­ploy crews to as­sist res­i­dents in case of flood­ing

MR­CRC vice-chair­man Haz­arie Ramdeen re­port­ed mi­nor floods in Ker­na­ham Vil­lage in Ma­yaro, Biche, San Pe­dro and Navet.